Hanging on a String (13 page)
Read Hanging on a String Online
Authors: Janette M. Louard
“They sent me to prison,” said Raymond. “I got my GED. Got a college degree. Learned about the law. Decided to be a lawyer. After I got out, I reinvented myself, and I never looked back. Never. I changed my name. Got a whole new identity. Worked my way through college and law school. And the rest is history, as they say.
“I knew people who specialized in giving folks another chance. For a price. I paid the price and became Raymond Bustamante. I thought the name Raymond sounded respectable. Good name for a lawyer. And I met this Cuban guy whose last name was Bustamante. It was unusual. I liked the sound of it. Things worked out. Raymond Bustamante has had a good life. A life he never could have imagined, let alone dreamed about, when he was growing up in Ocala, Florida.”
“What's your real name?” I asked.
“You mean the name I was born with?” He laughed, but it was clear the laughter did not reach his eyes. “Rufus White. My name is Rufus White.”
I sat there trying to make sense of something that made no sense. The man whom I was staring at, the man on whom I had built my professional dreams, had just told me that he had never existed.
“Chester found out about my past life, and he was planning to use that information to secure more compensation, shall we say,” said Raymond. “He hadn't approached me, but his secretary knew all about his plans, and she told Lamarr, who told me. Chester had me right where he wanted me. There is no Raymond Bustamante. There's only Rufus White, the ex-con.”
“Raymond, other attorneys have gone to prison and managed to salvage their careers.”
“Do you think any of our clients would still come to us if they knew the truth, Jasmine?” Raymond asked bitterly. “Come on, sweetheart. This is Wall Street.”
He was right.
Raymond continued talking. “I would have paid any price that Chester wanted me to pay. This firm is my life. I wasn't about to let Chester take it away from me.”
“Raymond,” I asked, “do you think Lamarr paid the price for Chester's dirty dealings?”
Raymond didn't bother to lie. “Probably. I'm sure Lamarr's death had something to do with all the stuff Chester was doing. Lamarr knew too much.”
“Who else knows about this?” I asked.
“Only Irmalee and me, as far as I know,” Raymond responded.
“What about Nina?” I asked.
“I don't think so,” replied Raymond. “Apparently, Chester wanted her to think he was a good, upstanding citizen, apart from the adultery. But Chester's secretary knows. According to Lamarr, Irmalee knows a whole lot. She even helped him do his dirty work.”
We both looked at each other at that moment. I could tell we were thinking the same thing. The secretary. She was the key to this whole mess. At the very least, she would be able to provide us with some information.
Raymond buzzed his secretary. “I need to see Irmalee Littlejohn immediately,” he ordered.
“She's not here,” replied his secretary over the intercom. “She called in sick yesterday.”
“Call her at home!” Raymond barked. I could tell he was feeling the same sense of alarm I was feeling.
A few minutes later, Raymond's secretary buzzed him. There was no one answering at Irmalee's home. She gave Raymond the address. Irmalee lived in Harlem, not far from where I live. Ten minutes later we were headed uptown in the backseat of a taxicab.
Â
We were silent on the ride uptown. Wrapped up in thoughts neither of us felt the necessity to share. I couldn't presume to guess what was on Raymond's mind, but if I were a betting woman (and I'm not), I would wager Raymond was wondering what I was going to do with his secret.
I stared across the East River to the borough of Brooklyn and thought of Lamarr. I longed for his calm counsel right about now. From the time I learned of Chester's death, it was as if I were on a roller-coaster ride, where the sudden and dramatic dips and turns were becoming more frequent. Lamarr was dead, and Raymond was an imposter. A well-pedigreed imposter. Everybody deserved a second chance. Whatever he had done, he had paid his debt to society. What I couldn't get past were the lies. Raymond had lied to me.
The taxi veered off the FDR and eased its way onto the 125th Street exit.
“Take 125th Street to Lenox Avenue; then take a right,” I ordered. Although taxi drivers in New York have maps for all of the five boroughs, when it came to navigating through Harlem, some taxi drivers acted as if they had suddenly come to a foreign land. This was not surprising, because most yellow cabs never came uptown further than 110th Street when they were on the Upper East Side unless they were headed somewhere else.
The taxi driver obeyed my directions without comment. He had not been pleased when Raymond announced our destination was 137th and Lenox Avenue. But we had already been seated in the cab when he inquired “where to?” so he had no other choice but to comply with our request that he take us uptown.
The taxi drove slowly along 125th Street, Main Street, Harlem, USA. Although it was just past eleven thirty in the morning, traffic was heavy, and our rate of progress could be described in two words, slow and stop. One of my favorite places in the world was 125th Street. It's a street filled with history, from the Apollo Theater, where African American musical legends sang regularly, to the Harlem State Office Building, where Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., spoke, to the various nightclubs, coffee shops, clothes stores, and restaurants. When I was a little girl, my father and I would walk down 125th Street and buy fresh vegetables from a grocery stand my father swore had the freshest produce in all of New York. As we walked down 125th Street, I would imagine I heard the voices of those who had walked these streets before me. Street hustlers, musicians, cornerside preachers, folks taken in by the lure of fast money, and fast-living folks who still dreamed of Harlem. These voices would tell me, “Walk tall, little sister.” And I did.
Even now when I go to 125th Street in search of some particular balm for an uneasy soul, whether it be incense oil from the African brother on 125th and Amsterdam, or some curry goat with rice and peas from the Jamaican restaurant just past Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard, or my cheap lipstick, which can only be found in a little store on the corner of the 125th Street and Morningside, or the works of the talented, famous, and not so famous black artists that hang on the wall of the Studio Museum in Harlem, I can still hear those voices, but now I just have to listen a lot harder.
“Turn right on Lenox,” I ordered, my voice sounding calm and in control, in direct contrast to what I was feeling. “Then go to 137th and hang a right.” The taxi driver obeyed, once again without comment.
Although I had never been to Irmalee's apartment building before, I was certain the three police cars with flashing lights and the crowd of people surrounding a building in the middle of the block were somehow connected to Irmalee. I looked over at Raymond, and the look on his face told me we were on the same wavelength.
“This doesn't look too good,” I said, expressing the obvious.
“No,” replied Raymond, speaking to me for the first time during our trip. “It doesn't look good at all.”
The taxi driver stopped as close to the building as he could. A crowd of about forty people was standing in the street, and the police cars blocked off the rest of the block. Raymond paid the taxi driver and told him, “Wait here for us.”
“The meter will be running,” stated the driver, whose facial expression had now gone from displeasure to something close to fear. I could tell he wasn't comfortable with being in an environment where there were not a lot of people who looked like him. Still, I had to give him credit. His need for the almighty dollar apparently overrode whatever fear or dislike he carried in his soul. He obviously could smell a good fare and an even better tip.
We got out of the taxi and made our way to the sidewalk in front of Irmalee's building, where one of New York's finest, one who apparently had not heard the mayor's speech on the importance of physical fitness for the members of
his
police force, stopped us, with a “Wheredayathinkyagoing?”
his
police force, stopped us, with a “Wheredayathinkyagoing?”
He was well over two hundred pounds, and he was sweating profusely. He had the red, flushed coloring of one who was well acquainted with the bottle, and his face was lined from years in the sun and, I guessed, hard living. His hair was a flaming color that was stuck somewhere between red and orange, and his eyes were the color of wheat. The whole effect was disconcerting. He looked at us with a bored air. Uppity folks, his eyes said as he gave us both a once-over, taking in the expensive suits and the taxi waiting for us obediently at a discreet distance.
Raymond spoke in his “I am a lawyer, and you had better think twice about messing with me” voice. “I'm here to see Irmalee Littlejohn. She lives in this building.”
New York's finest's eyes narrowed, and I thought I saw a smile lurking just beyond his lips. “Well, right now we're conducting police business,” he said. “I'm afraid it's just not possible.”
“What kind of police business?” I asked. “What's going on?”
New York's finest looked at me and said, “Who are you? You related to Miss Littlejohn?”
“No, I'm not related,” I said, his cold eyes confirming my suspicion his presence here had something to do with Irmalee Littlejohn. I was not fond of Irmalee, nor was she particularly enamored of me, but I did not wish her any harm. I saw in the face of New York's finest the grim eyes of someone who is on a first-name basis with random or specific acts of violence, which told me my wishes on this score would not be granted. Either Irmalee was in trouble or she was in a place where trouble could no longer reach her.
“Jasmine Spain,” said a male voice that was by now getting more familiar, “what are you doing here?”
Both Raymond and I turned in the direction of that voice and found ourselves staring at Detective Claremont. He was standing with two other uniformed officers. He had the air of someone who was distracted or worried or both. Dressed in khaki slacks, which had been ironed by someone who meant business, and a white oxford shirt, he looked like a professor or a graduate student on his way to class.
“I'm trying to get some answers,” I replied.
“I called your house this morning,” said the detective. “I talked to your mother. She assured me if you felt strong enough to leave the house, you were doing okay. How are you?”
“I've been better.”
Detective Claremont took two strides, and he was in front of me. He looked at me hard before speaking; then he looked at Raymond. “Mr. Bustamante,” he said by way of greeting; then he returned his attention to me. “What answers are you trying to get, Jasmine?” he asked.
“Irmalee Littlejohn lives here, and I want to make sure she's alright. She hasn't been to work in two days, and we've been unable to reach her.”
“She's dead.” Raymond's words were not a question, just a sure and certain statement. I had almost forgotten his presence; I was so consumed by the unfolding drama around me and my fear that Irmalee's life had come to the same ugly conclusion as Lamarr's and Chester's had.
Marcus nodded his head, his eyes never leaving my face. “Yes.”
This news didn't come as a shock. I wasn't stunned. I wasn't surprised. I think deep down, I'd suspected as much when I got in the cab. Whoever took the trouble to murder Chester and Lamarr was not going to leave any loose ends. Irmalee had been a loose end.
“What happened?” I asked, marveling that my voice had remained calm, reflecting a detached air I did not feel.
“Her throat was slashed. Like Chester.”
Throughout this discussion, New York's finest stood silently by, observing us. I thought I saw a mild curiosity in his eyes, but upon closer reflection, I saw I was wrong. I saw boredom. Another day. Another murder. Another statistic.
“Mr. Bustamante,” Marcus said, now turning his attention to Raymond. “I think you and I need to talk.”
He knew. It was unspoken. There was nothing unusual about the words spoken by the detective, but all three of us, Raymond, Detective Claremont, and I, knew Detective Claremont had found out Raymond's secret. The jig, as they say, was up.
My protective instincts went into high gear. I owed a lot to Raymond. Without his encouragement, I would probably have gone to a white-shoe, established Wall Street law firm, where I would have languished in obscurity, doing unimportant work that needed to be done to bill hours, until I was gently let go. Raymond allowed me to shine, and that opportunity had opened many doors to me. I was not going to turn my back on Raymond. Not now. Not ever. I am a loyal person. I owed a lot to Raymond. Other powerful partners wouldn't have taken me under their wing and safely guided my career the way Raymond did. I wasn't about to forget that, no matter how attracted I was to Marcus Claremont.
“There will be no questions of my client unless I'm in his presence,” I said.
Other books
The Mall by S. L. Grey
Take (Need #2) by K.I. Lynn, N. Isabelle Blanco
Disturbia (The 13th) by Manuel, Tabatha
Love Starts With Z by Tera Shanley
SEALs of Honor: Mason by Dale Mayer
Mission: Seduction by Candace Havens
Shorty Got My Head Gone by China White
Every Other Day by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice
The End of the Sentence by Maria Dahvana Headley, Kat Howard